An American in Scotland Page 19

  “What do you mean, fallen in love?”

  “Why else would he care so much about your safety?”

  “Duncan’s just that way. He’s very responsible.”

  “Nonsense. There’s being responsible and then there’s being deeply in love. Have you ever seen the look on his face when he is watching you?”

  She didn’t know how to answer that.

  “I saw you together today. At the tree house. He acted as if you were the only precious object in the entire world. You were the only focus of his attention.”

  Rose stared down at her gloved hands.

  “And you, Duncan’s Rose, looked at him in the same way. Almost worshipful.”

  How could she possibly deny that? Who wouldn’t love Duncan?

  Another thing he didn’t seem to understand. She worried as much about him as he did her. He was sailing off into danger and he expected her to stay somewhere safe. How much better to be with him than remaining here without knowing what was happening.

  “Please sit down, my dear. We’ll talk of other things if the subject of love disturbs you.”

  It seemed to her that Olivia, like a great many southern women she had met, accomplished what they needed with a smile and a fan. They batted their eyes and southern men fell at their feet. They didn’t treat southern women in quite the same way. Instead, they met their eyes directly as if looking for a secret knowledge or a wink and a nod.

  God help you if you got on the wrong side of a southern woman, but they could be invaluable allies.

  She had the feeling that Olivia could be the same.

  “So, why does he want you to stay in Nassau? And where would you rather be?”

  “With him,” Rose said, so quickly that Olivia laughed.

  The older woman sat beside her, regarding her steadily.

  “Is there anything for you in Charleston?”

  “Not at Charleston, but at Glengarden. My sister and my niece.”

  She told the older woman the expurgated version of the story of Glengarden.

  Olivia took a deep breath when she was finished. “And you would rescue them?”

  She nodded.

  “What if they don’t wish to leave?”

  The same question Duncan had asked her, and one for which there was still no answer.

  “I have to try.”

  “You’re one of those ­people who are determined to be virtuous, aren’t you? You’ll always do the right thing, even when there isn’t always a right thing to do.”

  She’d never been categorized in that fashion and didn’t quite know how to answer. Making love with Duncan hadn’t been the right thing, but it wasn’t a response she was going to make to Olivia.

  “Since you’ve been so frank, may I tell you a story?”

  Rose nodded.

  “Once upon a time,” Olivia began, “there was a very vain woman. She would spend a great deal of time in front of the mirror, wondering how she could improve her looks. She’d been born to a good family. Her father was a physician. Her mother was a great beauty of her day. This woman, one might say, was touched with favor. She attracted the attention of a very fine man, a man on his way to being wealthy and famous. They wed and had a handsome son and a lovely daughter. The husband of this woman built her a house on a hill, something so splendid that all the inhabitants of the city below them remarked on it. ‘He must love her very much,’ they said. ‘Look what he built for her.’

  “As the years passed, the woman realized she was not happy. Yes, she was still beautiful and her husband adored her. Plus, she had the love of her two wonderful children. She could not help but wonder if there wasn’t something out in the world that would make her happy. Someone she could love as she didn’t love her husband, fine man that he was. Something that would make life exciting, as it wasn’t now.

  “Every day the thought stayed with her. Was this what her life was to be like? Always questioning? Always wondering? Always being dissatisfied? How was she to live like this? One day she took some money from her husband’s money box. Not a tremendous amount, but enough for a sea voyage and to see her settled somewhere. She packed one trunk, arranged for the driver to take her to the train, and was away from the city in the blink of an eye.

  “She had made a choice, you see, and as fate would have it, it was the wrong choice, but how was she to know it until she’d made it?”

  “Why was it the wrong choice? Did she find that she loved her husband after all?”

  Olivia smiled, but the expression held little humor. “Oh, no. She discovered that she didn’t love herself. You can’t truly love another person until you love yourself, you know, but that’s not the moral of this story, Rose.”

  She remained silent.

  “The moral is that there are always choices in life. Life is never black and white. Life is mostly gray. But in the grayness there are choices. Like the choice you have right this minute.”

  “What choice?” Rose asked.

  “What do you want to do right now? If I could be your fairy godmother and help you do anything you wanted, what would it be? Make your choice wisely. It took me years to recover from the choice I made.”

  Rose sat there and regarded the older woman. Olivia was a surprise.

  “Do you really want to stay with me until Duncan returns?”

  Rose shook her head. “No. I want to get on board the Raven before she sails,” she said. “Are you going to help me?”

  “Of course I am, Duncan’s Rose, but it’s going to be dangerous, running the blockade.”

  She nodded.

  “And I don’t think it’s going to be safe at that Glengarden of yours,” she said.

  “No, probably not.”

  Olivia studied her for a minute. “Don’t let him go. If your sister won’t leave, then don’t be so foolish as to stay. Go with Duncan wherever he goes. Being together is so much better than being apart.”

  She couldn’t agree more.

  Fortified with a rum cocktail Olivia insisted she consume, and wearing one of Olivia’s shawls to cover her hair, they descended the staircase and out the front of the hotel to hire a carriage. To her surprise, it wasn’t at all difficult to obtain a vehicle at this hour and they were at the harbor in minutes. Nassau was like a city in the middle of a celebration. Even now she could hear music playing and ­people laughing.

  DUNCAN WAS damned if he was going to sail away from the woman he loved without her agreement to wait for him, especially since it had taken him a lifetime to find her.

  His valise in hand, he knocked on the door to Olivia’s room, hoping that Rose would see him. He had to explain in a way that didn’t insult her. He had to somehow find the right words. With any luck, Olivia might add her voice to his. She knew how dangerous their departure from Nassau might prove to be.

  No one answered his knock. He knocked again and then once more before it was plain they weren’t going to answer.

  He wasn’t deterred. Returning to his suite, he threw his valise down and sat at the secretary. He would quote Burns to her. She’d liked the man’s poetry.

  O my Luve is like a red, red rose

  That’s newly sprung in June;

  O my Luve is like the melody

  That’s sweetly played in tune.

  So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

  So deep in luve am I;

  And I will luve thee still, my dear,

  Till a’ the seas gang dry.

  There was more, but he couldn’t remember it.

  He added his own postscript.

  Robert Burns wrote that nearly seventy years ago, Rose, but he might have taken the words from my own thoughts. I love you as I’ve never thought to love anyone. My first wish is to keep you safe. My second is to come back to you.

  He addressed the note to her, the
n returned to Olivia’s room and slipped it beneath the door.

  With any luck, Burns would do what his own words had not: convince Rose to wait for him.

  FOR THE first time since she donned mourning for her brothers, Rose was grateful to be wearing it. The black dress and shawl made her blend into the moonless night.

  “I doubt you’ll have much trouble getting on board,” Olivia said. “Ships are always scenes of chaos just before they leave port.”

  “Thank you,” she said, turning the handle of the carriage door. “Thank you for everything.”

  “Just remember what I told you, Rose, and that will be thanks enough. Choose wisely, because you’ll have to live with that choice forever.”

  She nodded, then leaned over and kissed Olivia’s cheek. The look of surprise on the older woman’s face made her smile.

  Olivia did something to her décolletage that made her grateful Duncan wasn’t anywhere near. Lennox’s mother or not, the woman had an astounding figure.

  “What are you going to do?”

  ­“People are often diverted, Rose. While you are gaining access to the Raven, I shall make a fuss about something. Maybe I’ll claim a highwayman absconded with my jewels. Better yet,” she said, “I’ll claim my lover has been unfaithful and the rascal should be punished somehow.”

  She stared at Olivia, uncertain if the woman was jesting.

  When the carriage stopped, she left the vehicle and made her way to the gangplank. At that exact instant Olivia began to scream.

  The throngs of men and women crowded around the Raven, loading supplies, trunks, and other crates, turned to see what was the matter, only to be greeted by the sight of Olivia stepping out of the carriage, her hair askew, tears falling down her cheeks.

  She was pointing to a nearby ship, and that’s where everyone’s attention was directed.

  “How dare he leave me?” she shouted. “He promised me he would stay with me forever! Forever, until that Spanish whore lured him to her bed.”

  Rose was torn between wanting to stay and see Olivia’s theatrics and getting to the captain’s cabin.

  The door to the stateroom wasn’t locked. She entered the cabin, closed the door behind her, and sagged against it, her legs feeling wobbly. The faint lantern light through the porthole illuminated the space. She’d already considered where she would hide and realized there was only one place: one of the two wardrobes in the stateroom.

  Both of them were empty, as she’d expected. She removed her hoop, collapsed the foundation garment and stuffed it into the drawer below the bed. Putting the shawl next to the hoop, she grabbed her skirts and climbed into the wardrobe still smelling of Duncan’s clothes and the scent of bay rum.

  How much longer until they sailed? The voices from outside the cabin had faded a little. Leaning her head back against the wall of the wardrobe, she allowed herself to relax.

  Duncan was not going to be happy with her, but his anger was nothing compared to what she’d face at Glengarden.

  What had Duncan said? That he thought the journey too dangerous?

  The voyage didn’t hold as many terrors as facing Bruce. He would find some way to punish her, she was sure. No doubt he thought she’d dishonored the Confederacy by selling the cotton that would save them. He would have them all starve, waving the Confederate battle flag as they took their last breath.

  What other alternative was there? He wouldn’t care about Maisie or Old Betsy or Benny, but what about Claire? Or his daughter?

  She leaned back and ended up dozing, waking to a lantern being lit. Footsteps moved around the bed, approaching the bureau. Suddenly the wardrobe door opened, a muscular arm reached in and put a garment on a hook.

  She bit her lip rather than make a sound.

  “Do you want to explain what the hell you’re doing on the Raven, Rose?”

  She sighed. “You can’t possibly see me. It’s black as pitch in here.”

  “Come out of there.”

  Bracing herself against the edge of the wardrobe door, she thrust her legs out, then pulled herself up by the door handle.

  Standing was more difficult than she expected, because she’d been in an odd position for a few hours and her legs felt numb. She landed hard against Duncan, both of them toppling onto the bed with a thud.

  He was warm and sturdy, like a tree trunk.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “You smell of bath salts,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  She raised her head and studied his face in the light of the lantern. “You aren’t surprised to see me here, either, are you?”

  “I expected you would attempt something of the sort.”

  “If you think I’m going to be evicted from the Raven, I warn you, I’ll cause a terrible scene. I won’t go.”

  “No, you won’t, will you?”

  She frowned at him.

  “Why are you being so agreeable?”

  “I’m not being the least bit agreeable. I’m not feeling agreeable at all. I wanted to protect you, but I’ve also gotten to know you. I’m not so sure I would call it being opinionated or stubborn as much as I would having a strong will. You’re probably the most strong-­willed person I’ve ever known, and that’s saying something, since I have a sister who has heretofore worn that label.”

  She didn’t quite know what to say. To be compared to Glynis might be a compliment or it might not be.

  “When you believe in something, Rose, I imagine it’s impossible to turn you from your task.”

  She nodded slowly. That trait of her character had never before been considered an asset, but the way he was talking it seemed as if he thought it was.

  “You must have driven Bruce to distraction. You were probably the only person who ever defied him, which makes the situation doubly dangerous.”

  He had always understood, so she wasn’t surprised that he’d come to that conclusion.

  “Are you very angry?”

  “If I said yes, what would you do?”

  She blew out a breath and thought about it for a moment.

  “I would probably just leave you alone until you got over it. That always worked best with my father and brothers. However, I doubt most southern women would let you pout. They’d probably bring you a whiskey, flirt with you with a fan, and tell you how handsome you are.”

  “I don’t pout.”

  She lifted her head and gave him a direct look. “I suspect you do, but in a Duncan-­like way. All disciplined and professional. You’d remain very quiet and you wouldn’t look at the other person. You’d ignore them until you were certain they knew how annoyed you were.”

  “I would?”

  She nodded. “Then, and only then, you would say something innocuous, but in a very stern way. ‘Terrible weather we’re having.’ It’s the tone of voice, you see.”

  “You don’t have a very good opinion of me.”

  “Don’t be silly. You’re the most wonderful man I’ve ever met.”

  “But I’m all disciplined and professional.”

  “Except in bed,” she said. “There, you’re not the least disciplined.”

  He put his arms around her.

  “I wanted to make sure you were safe. Bruce is a tyrant and a despot. They don’t change easily, if at all. I doubt the loss of his leg has made him a gentle creature who would understand your sailing to Scotland to arrange the sale of his cotton.”

  He was certainly correct in that assessment.

  “I wanted to protect you, Rose.”

  She lay her head against his chest, listening to the thunderous beat of his heart, calming and reassuring her.

  Her father and brothers had felt the same, trying to protect her from the consequences of her own actions. Then she’d learned, albeit a little later than she should, that every ac
tion has a reaction. Every gesture evokes a response.

  “But it’s only fair to warn you,” he said, “that from this moment on, you won’t be alone.”

  She raised her head to look at him.

  “I have no intention of leaving you in Charleston or at Glengarden. When you’re done with what you need to do, I’m hoping to talk you into coming back to Scotland with me.” He smiled at her. “You see, I find I’ve developed an equally strong will.”

  The knock on the door stopped the conversation they desperately needed to have.

  Chapter 21

  He opened the door to the stateroom and greeted Captain McDougal.

  “The Exeter has arrived, sir.”

  Bloody hell. That was the worst news they could get.

  “Good morning, Mrs. MacIain,” the captain said, looking past him to where Rose was standing. “I didn’t know you’d be traveling with us to Charleston.”

  “A change of plans,” Duncan said.

  The captain, a man with some degree of tact, said nothing in response.

  An hour later the Raven left her anchorage, remaining just outside the lighthouse. According to Captain McDougal, the delay was because she was waiting for her clearance papers from the customs house. According to their official documents, the Raven was bound for Newfoundland. Instead, they’d be heading direct for Charleston, like most of the ships leaving Nassau.

  The paperwork wasn’t going to fool the Exeter. She’d be in pursuit of them the minute they left Bahamian waters. The Raven had been built as a blockade runner, one of the fastest ships in the Cameron and Company fleet. Today she’d come into her own.

  They finally received clearance at noon, leaving the island slowly, as if time weren’t important.

  As long as they were close to land, they were safe. Three miles outside Nassau they’d no longer be in British waters.

  Duncan stood at the rail and watched as the Exeter followed them. He didn’t think Captain McDougal even blinked. Duncan sweated more than he’d ever remembered. Yet he was standing still, not working to clear out the looms or sweeping the production floor. The sun was grueling, the glare on the ocean so blinding he could close his eyes and still see the white gold of it.